In Germany, the largest EU country, media and public opinion have reached the understanding that the future top jobs will be taken by representatives of small countries.
The latest rumours at government level suggest that a representative of any large country will have no chance of becoming president, EurActiv Germany reports.
Juncker favourite in Berlin and Paris?
German officials are of the understanding that British candidates have no chance of obtaining any of the positions, mainly because Britain wants to stay out of the euro zone.
As it stands, Germany seems to favour two German-speaking candidates: Luxembourg's long-serving Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker and Austria's former Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.
In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to nominate Michel Barnier as commissioner cut short rumours that Paris might consider putting forward a socialist – Hubert Vedrine or Elisabeth Guigou – for the position of high representative.
Therefore, the French audience has also lost some of its interest in the top job race. Nevertheless, some curiosity remains regarding the chances of putting a woman at the head of the EU.
Traditional women's lobbies and the Robert Schuman Foundation - a French think-tank on European affairs led by a woman, Pascale Joannin - have been leading a campaign to support the candidacy of former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga for the European Council post, EurActiv France reports.
Rumours in Paris also give Juncker the advantage in the EU president race. Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared recently that they would support a common candidate, and Juncker seems to be Germany's favourite, French analysts note.
Belgium wonders about Van Rompuy
In Belgium, the mainstream media is paying close attention to the race for EU top jobs, as the country's prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, was recently singled out as "the most consensual candidate" (EurActiv 02/11/09).
But as Van Rompuy has kept silent and has taken no particular steps - except from hosting a controversial dinner with the secretive Bilderberg group in Brussels - to secure the role. Many Belgian commentators are now questioning whether his departure would be in the country's best interests.
Van Rompuy has a reputation for being a skilled mediator and troubleshooter, which he obtained thanks to the difficult Belgian inter-community political context. But he is yet to complete complex state reforms to re-balance power between the Dutch and French-speaking regions, which some fear could lead to the country's partition.
Part of Belgian public opinion in fact felt that the Bilderberg dinner, at which Van Rompuy expressed support for specific taxes to fund the European Union, was a mistake, as it may have conveyed the message that this group, of which several CEOs of multinationals are members, will "choose the leader of Europe".
Blair antagonises UK public
In Britain, Tony Blair's unofficial candidacy for the post of EU president has tended to be the focus of media interest, but the paradox is that public opinion is largely against him obtaining the job.
Judging from blogs and Internet forums, two categories of Blair's foes appear to have joined forces: Eurosceptics on the one hand and anti-Iraq war campaigners on the other.
Meanwhile, David Miliband's possible candidacy for the position of high representative (he has repeatedly said he is not a candidate) has also galvanised interest, but only in the context of seeing him leave national politics and his foreign secretary position.
In Ireland, interest in the top jobs race is seen as a fall-out from the second Lisbon Treaty referendum, as the Irish became highly exposed to EU-related reactions to the campaign.
The high-brow media – RTE (the state broadcaster) and the Irish Times – have taken some interest in the EU presidency. However, in the popular press, there was very little coverage.
Poland adds its weight
Poland, the biggest East European EU country, has thrown its weight behind the decision-making process. Warsaw had already obtained the European Parliament top seat, but this did not prevent Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski from insisting on several occasions that one of the two new top jobs under the Lisbon Treaty should also go to 'new Europe', "but not to Poland". In Brussels circles, this message has been seen as support for the candidacy of former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, seen as a staunch Atlanticist.
Also, Poland insisted that the new heads of the EU do not emerge from backroom negotiations, but after the presentation of the candidates and their programmes. This idea was reportedly shared by at least six other countries (Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia), but strongly opposed by 'old Europe' member states.
East re-publishes Western agencies
In Eastern Europe as a whole, apart from the nomination of the national commissioners, the interest for the two EU positions has been limited, the EurActiv media network reports.
In the Czech Republic, the last country to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, there has been no public debates over the top jobs race and the media only translated reports from foreign agencies. Prague has issued no official statements on the topic.
Last Monday (16 November), just ahead of an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, the Czech minister for foreign affairs Jan Kohout refused to comment on who the Czechs would support at the summit. He added only a very general statement that saying: "We would, of course, prefer having consensus on these jobs as soon as possible. We cannot, however, rule out prolonging the summit, or having to hold an extra one."
In his blog, Jan Macháček, a commentator for the influential Czech weekly Respekt, lamented that Czechs were unable to show support for any potential candidates.
"Does the Czech Republic want anything? What do we want? What interest alliances are we creating or co-creating? Where, when and to what purpose are we teaming up with others? Where do we step back and where do we push harder? Nobody knows, nobody cares and therefore nobody can speculate," Macháček wrote, quoted by EurActiv Czech Republic.
In Hungary, the situation appears similar, as the national press limits itself to re-publishing Reuters or AFP agency reports. No internal debate took place, and the only conference which was organised on this topic failed to produce any news report.
A high profile Hungarian MP, Mátyás Eörsi, hinted that EU leaders were to blame for this state of affairs. Noting that the charismatic Tony Blair had been abandoned, to the advantage of low-profile candidates, he said "this is because the EU heads of state are not interested in somebody who overshadows them".
In Slovakia, the mainstream media has disregarded the top jobs race, and little interest was shown by the public either. The situation may have been influenced by the fact that the country's prime minister, Robert Fico, has realised that he is not among those who will ultimately decide. Fico is known to oppose Blair because of his support for the Iraq war. His government brought Slovak soldiers back from Iraq as soon as his government came to power in 2006, EurActiv Slovakia writes.
President or king?
In Romania, all the attention is focused on the country's presidential elections on 22 November. Some of the internal debate and pre-electoral accusations have touched on the alleged mishandling of the Romanian commissioner's appointment and the 'personal adventure' of leading Socialist MEP Adrian Severin, who declared his candidacy for the high representative job before obtaining the blessing of centre-right President Traian Basescu.
"To cut a long story short, Romania is coming to this summit without a strategy and without even minimal consensus among the leading figures," Cristian Ghinea, director of the Romanian Centre for European Policies, told EurActiv Romania.
In Bulgaria, interest in the Brussels appointment disappeared completely after it became clear that Meglena Kuneva, the current Bulgarian commissioner (ALDE-affiliated), will not stay on for a second term. The new centre-right government decided to nominate Roumiana Jeleva, a former MEP from its own ranks.
An 'exotic' idea to nominate the country's former Prime Minister Simeon Saxe Cobourg-Gotha, Bulgaria's infant king from 1943 to 1946, was abandoned. The foreign minister serving under Simeon, Solomon Passy, had kept this idea alive for a couple of years, insisting that the former king, with his cosmopolitan background, was in fact "the perfect European".
Bulgarian website Mediapool keeps open an online poll, where readers can vote for six candidates for the EU top job: Latvia's Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the Netherlands' Jan-Peter Balkenende, Tony Blair, Jean-Claude Juncker and Herman Van Rompuy. On Wednesday afternoon (18 November), the poll gave a clear advantage to Blair with 355 votes or 39%, followed by Jean-Claude Juncker with 207 votes or 23%. Reinfeldt came third with 127 votes or 14%. All other candidates, little known by the audience, are lagging far behind.
